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Whoa! How do I pay for this?

September 21, 2011 by admin

POAC of Oregon exists because the education system does not practice the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis. If schools were to analyze the progress of the children in their care, they would find that many children, if not most, do not make nearly the progress they should.

So if the education system doesn’t pay, who does?

Well, you, the parent pays. Currently, most insurance companies do not cover “behavioral” or educational treatments. Future insurance parity legislation might change that, but parents will need to speak up. A limited number of companies, like Microsoft, offer insurance coverage for ABA. At this time no company in Oregon openly covers ABA, although a few single instances do exist.

Some people have found some pretty creative ways to raise funds:

1. Use volunteers from your church to run sessions. You’ll need to train everyone, regularly supervise each therapist via video taping or sitting in on sessions, and ensure quality control through regular team meetings.

2. Hire students ($8 – $15 per hour) from your local college, university, even high school. Again, you’ll need to train everyone and ensure quality control.

3. Use funding from Children’s Intensive In Home Services (CIIS) to pay for therapists. CIIS funding is limited to a small number of families across the entire state of Oregon and qualification is difficult. Contact the CIIS department for a CIIS Intake.

5. Fundraise for your child, just as parents do with their child who needs expensive treatment or an operation.

6. Badger your insurance company and prove that ABA is medically necessary. Autism is a medical condition that requires treatment much like any other medical condition such as a stroke. Search the internet on how this can be attempted.